


Fearless on my breath

by oneatatime



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 05:23:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5955220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneatatime/pseuds/oneatatime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Recovery isn't a steady upwards line. There are good days and bad days. Nothing to worry about. </p><p>...right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fearless on my breath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [borrowedphrases](https://archiveofourown.org/users/borrowedphrases/gifts).



Poe probably should have guessed. 

Ben had been increasingly quieter, but he hadn’t seemed any less happy. Poe knew that recovery wasn’t a steady upwards line, that there were good days and bad days. 

* * * * * 

“I love you,” Poe murmured into Ben’s hair. They were a sleepy tangle of limbs on Poe’s small bed. One of Ben’s impossibly long legs was draped over both of Poe’s. 

He felt Ben go tense. “I...”

Poe gulped. “No, no, don’t worry about it. Just slipped out. I don’t want to pressure you.” He stared up at the ceiling, only dimly visible in the starlight. Couldn’t see where he’d run out of paint and had had to use a slightly bluer green to finish it off. 

“No, it’s not that. I need to...” 

But Ben didn’t continue the sentence. He made a soft brief choking sound. Poe worked himself up on one elbow to lean over him, cupping his cheek. Ben had already drifted off into sleep. Poe frowned at him, moving his hand down to Ben’s heart. Ben’s skin felt unnaturally cool, but that was probably from the exertion of what they'd been doing for the past hour or so. His chest rose and fell steadily, and his heartrate felt normal, thudding under Poe’s hand like it was reacting to his touch. Ben was asleep. Just asleep. 

Poe wrapped himself around him and followed suit. 

* * * * * 

If Ben didn’t seem as excited about his second birthday after the Dark as he had about his first, well, it’d been a long few days. It was understandable. The way he clung to Poe’s hand so fiercely was perfectly reasonable after Poe had only barely made it back after that last mission. Poe hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours, and by the look of him....... 

“Did you sleep at all?” Poe asked softly. 

Ben handed him a slice of cake on a plate with a sparkly pink spoon, and shook his head. 

Poe didn’t tell him he loved him, but after the guests had left, he wrapped both arms around Ben’s waist and sighed in pleasure as he felt Ben’s arms come around his shoulders. They didn’t _need_ to say it. 

* * * * * 

It all came together a month later. 

Poe threw himself into a dive past the kitchen doorway, and was scrambling for a blaster in one of his hideout spots under a floorboard before he’d even registered what he’d seen.

Ben.

In their kitchen.

Head down, wrists manacled together in front of him, with stormtroopers on either side of him. 

Poe flattened himself against the wall outside the kitchen, heart racing. No time to think about who, or how, or what. They were after Ben again and he had to stop them. Simple. 

He leaned out, fired off three shots. Took out two of them. Return fire chipped a chunk out of the doorjamb, which scored a mark along his cheekbone. He barely felt it. 

Before he could lean in again, someone kicked in their front door, and it was all over. There were just too many of them. Breath hissing between his teeth from probable broken ribs, Poe found himself forced to his knees in front of – Hux, that was it. His hands were tied roughly behind his back, and there were three or four stormtroopers leaning on him heavily. 

“I’ve been advised the cell has been prepared for the pilot on the ship,” the stormtrooper on his left (voice hoarse with pain from a stomped-on hand, at least) told Hux. “As per your orders.” 

A hand in his hair yanked his head up, making him watch as...

As Hux smiled down at him, and turned to present the Kylo Ren helmet to Ben. 

“Fight!” Poe roared to him, desperate, pleading, but when he saw the horror in Ben’s eyes he realised that Ben _had been fighting_ , all this damn time, that Snoke had been whispering at him, pulling at him, choking him, yanking him back down into the Dark. 

Making him unable to say a word of it. 

Ben’s face twisted, and then he said clearly, “I love you.” 

There was a brief look of absolute relief on his face. 

As the helmet descended, Poe gave him the only gift he could. Everything narrowed down to the two of them here, now. This was all they had. This was all he could do for Ben. Softly. “I know.” 

Poe probably should have guessed earlier. But it would have done no good. 

He caught a brief glimpse of a rifle butt on his left, and blinding pain flared in his temple just before he passed out.


End file.
